DISCLAIMER: I own neither HTTYD or LOST BOY: The True Story Of Captain Hook. This is written purely for fun, though essentially it's a HTTYD version of Lost Boy. Some details are the same while others get a HTTYD TWIST. I make no profit from this. HTTYD is property of DreamWorks and Cressida Cowell. LOST BOY is property of Christina Henry.
Chapter 2
The trap-checking party was gone for some time, checking all the snares in our territory, but they were back before the sun was at its highest point, as I expected. All the traps were full, which was a heartening boon. It meant we wouldn't have to spend too much time hunting on the way here to the Viking camp.. We never had to worry about going hungry in the forest, but the pickings slimmed down the closer we got to the border of the mountains and plains.
The five arrived back in the clearing in high spirits arms loaded with game. In short order, the boys were split into groups, some skinning and cutting up the small game while others buried the guts where it wouldn't attract scavengers.
Of course, Camicazi insisted on having some rabbit for lunch as long as there was enough to go around. Though I was inclined to save it for the upcoming march, I didn't argue. We would need the strength.
I was also pleased to see Dagur looking so exhausted from foraging in the woods with the Twins. The two of them could move like deer when they had the mind, and doubtless had kept up an unaccustomed pace for the taller boy. Hopefully he'd be too tired form the exercise to be much trouble.
The twins were a whiz with fires, able to coax a blaze out of nearly anything on the island, just one of their many destructive talents. They were now currently fighting over who got to light it, we paid them no mind, we were use to this behavior.
Ruffnut won the right, soon we had a fire crackling in the clearing with a couple of the fattest rabbits skewered over the flames. Fishlegs keeping a watchful eye over them, he was the closest any of us had to a cook. Soon the smell of the sizzling meat filled the air and even though the only thing to go with them was a sprinkling of salt we extracted from sea water and a few herbs he collected, my mouth watered.
The best of the meat went to Camicazi first, then me, followed by the twins. The share and order each received their meat was based on the size of the boy, his length of time he'd been on the island as well as his current favor with Camicazi. So Zephyr, Nuffink and Dagur got their portions last and they were the smallest.
Zephyr and Nuffink bit into the rabbit vigorously, they'd been eating as much fruit as they could get their hands on all morning and the small pieces was more then enough for kids their size. I was actually surprised they were given their own pieces.
When Dagur's turn came, he eyed the scrap of meat Fishlegs held out to hom, eyes narrowing dangerously, "What's this then? Where's the rest?"
Fishlegs eyes shifted from Dagur to me to Camicazi nervously. Camicazi didn't appear too eager to step in at the moment. Her teeth dug into the juiciest bit of meat, savoring each bit with a soft humm of pleasure.
I didn't like stepping into every little disagreement with the others. It was one thing to stop them from killing one another, but mostly it'd mean I'd spend the whole day solving problems and I had more important things to do. Secondly, the group would never get along if someone else solved all their arguments. So I waited. I didn't care too much for Dagur, but Camicazi had picked him and he was going have to find his place in the tribe, just like Fishlegs had to defend his.
Besides Fishlegs will die soon anyway. I felt myself slightly sick at the heartless thought. But it was the truth.
It didn't matter who won this fight because Fishlegs would die before we got back from raiding the Vikings. Didn't matter if it was from coughing up all the blood out of his lungs or being run through with a Viking spear or maybe, if he was real unlucky, one of the Skullions would take him and devour him alive and feed their young with his remains.
So when Fishlegs looked at me I just looked back, waiting for whatever outcome happened. I liked Fishlegs much more then Dagur, but I didn't think Fishlegs would wiggle out of this one. He'd been able to hold his own before, but he hadn't been much of a fighter (least not to mine or the twins level)- back before he got sick- but I didn't like his chances with the bigger boy.
Fishlegs swallowed, like he expected this, and said with only a slight stutter, "It's your share of the meat."
Dagur scowled, knocking the scrap of meat aside with the back of his hand. Ordinarily Fishlegs probably could've held his own, but he was so pale and thinner then normal he was practically a ghost already, and Dagur well accustomed to knocking smaller kids down and taking their food back in the Other Place.
"That's no share," Dagur growled, pushing his face inches from Fishlegs, "Give me yours."
When his turn came up Fishlegs had fairly piled his entitled share- larger then Dagur's but smaller then Camicazi's, he'd been on the island a fair many seasons , arriving fourth or fifth, and he cooked it all besides. He looked at his food, then back at Dagur, and his chin rose.
"Your new. Your share comes last. That's how it's always been, if you don't like it you can find your own food."
"Or," Dagur sneered, "I can get it from a shaky little limpet like you." His hand was already reaching for Fishlegs share, but at the wrong time his eyes shifted at Camicazi to see she made any move to stop him.
His eyes should've stayed on Fishlegs.
In an split second , Fishlegs foot shifted closer to the red coals of the fire and sideswiped the burning embers straight into Dagur's face. Ash kicked up in some of the food of the boys closest to Dagur food, making them shout at Fishlegs, but it was all drowned out
Dagur howled his hand flying to clasp his face, two coals touched his eyes and sizzled. Dagur immediately proved his brains were rocks by doing the one thing guaranteed to make it worse- his hands scrabbled at his eyes, rubbing the coals deeper, all the while stumbling away from the fire and wailing like a Thunderdrum.
Most of the others paused and looked over at Dagur's pain for only a moment , but when it became apparent him and Fishlegs weren't about to fight, they went back to their food, like nothing had transpired .
Good on you, Fishlegs, I thought.
Fishlegs calmly grabbed his meat and ate ravenously, tearing at it with his teeth. When our eyes locked, I flashed an approving wink to let him know he'd done fine. He flashed a brief smile in return. Again, I thought how pale and thinner he looked and how powerless I really was even with the power to live forever, to stop what was to happen.
Zephyr and Nuffink paused in their eating and watched with big eyes as Dagur bellowed and blundered around. "Shouldn't we do something, Hiccup? He's hurt." Zephyr asked.
"He got what he deserved for trying to take Fishleg's share," I said and they winced, I patted their heads to try and take some of the venom out of it. They were too little, little and softhearted for this place. I knew they'd never make it unless they toughened up, they'd have to loose something that made them Zephyr and Nuffink.
For a moment I felt the full force of that hit me, like a sack of rocks, I could feel the dead weight of their tiny bodies in my arms as I carried them out and dropped them to a grave I'd have spent all morning digging.
My eyes shut, picturing that, it felt so real it hurt, like a cold pierce to my heart worse then the chilling sting of a Speed Stinger.
"Someone should do something about that racket. It's hurting my ears." Camicazi said.
My eyes opened and the vision broke. I heaved a sigh, I knew an order when I heard one, however way she said it, shoveling the rest of the rabbit into my mouth, I stood up, heading to where Dagur was shouting and flailing at the edge of the forest.
I wondered what Camicazi had seen in him, sure he was big and strong. If I was with her the last time she went to the Other Place (And I hadn't been for Dogsbreath had just died and I reluctantly had dragged his body to the border of the Skullions plains, in hopes this would keep them satiated. We did this every now and again, leave them a corpse, when it looked they were tempted to go into the forest), I would've advised against Dagur. Camicazi had gone for just one child, one specifically to replace Dogsbreath, I hadn't been overly fond of Dogsbreath, but he was more then half boy Dagur was, to my way of thinking, and since Camicazi took a trip just for Dagur, he had a pompous sense of his own specialness.
In truth I was the only one who was special, truly special, for I was the first, and would be the last if it came down to it. It always had been and always would be Camicazi and me, just like we were in the beginning.
For a few moments I watched Dagur. He made such a noise I was embarrassed for him, my own mind made to spin him around and lead him to the path through the forest and let what happened happen. If he got eaten by a Direbear or stumble off a cliff, that'd be best for the tribe, but Camicazi hadn't said get rid of him, just silence him.
Dagur jerked around as I approached, I saw his streaming red eyes try to focus, I was nothing more then a blurry shadow moving towards him.
"Don't you touch me," he said raising his fists. Almost as if he sensed the dark thoughts drifting through me. "Don't come near me. I didn't do nothing wrong. That walking marshmallow threw fire in my eyes and he's the one who ought to be…"
That's as far as he got before my temple connected against his, hard enough to warrant his ears would ring the next morning. On a regular day he might've shaken it off, but fatigue from checking the traps, eyes burned by coals and hungry because he'd been too busy trying to steal Fishlegs food to eat his own.
One head-butt was all it took for Dagur to go down hard, face-first to the ground. If he wasn't already planning a go at me, he'd certainly be doing so when he came to. I knew his type.
I went back to the fire.
"Quieter now," Camicazi said nodding.
The only sounds came from the buzzing of flies with the wind whistling through the trees, the fire crackles and the smacking of meat still being chewed. The sun was high in the sky, the shadows long from the trees, though night was still far off. The group laughing and pushing one another as they ate, tossing their bones into the fire, as happy as they could be, and I was happy to be there, to see them all smiling.
Then Camicazi straightened, and she got that look in her eye, the look that said she felt like poking a sleeping bear. I don't know why, but Camicazi couldn't stand it when every one felt content. I felt she was never satisfied unless all eyes were focusing on her, or maybe she just hated thinks being too quiet. She said once if she say still for too long I was like ants under just her skin, like she constantly had to be moving, bounding, leaping, planning, doing, her brain would burst.
She jumped to her feet and instantly everyone snapped up at once, I saw the flash of satisfaction on her face, a chief in charge of her own little tribe, like the brightest star in the sky with everyone else having eyes for only her. Just the way she liked it.
"Who wants to hear a story?"
Immediately the clearing was a chorus of "yes", everyone was in good spirits, they were full, and if Camicazi wanted to tell a story, they wanted to hear it?
Camicazi scooped up a handful of dirt from around the fire, spitting into it to make mud and rubbing it in her hands as she did so, "What kind of story should we have? A Viking story? A ghost story? A treasure story?"
"Something with a lot of blood and a lot of adventure!" Ruffnut stood up, holding a long stick before her like a blade.
Tuffnut stood up and crossed his own stick over hers," And swords and sea monsters. Oh, and a mermaid! Got to have a mermaid." He was partial to the mermaids, and surprisingly they were fairly fond of him as well, finding him funny. Often, Tuffnut went off on his own to their cove where they liked to sing and show their tail fins over the breaking waves. Some of the new kids sometimes found it laughable, that a supposedly tough guy like Tuff would frolic with mermaids , right up until his tough fist collided with their face.
"Something with a haunt walking and scaring wimps to death," Snotlout said. "I saw a story like that once. This one guy killed a king so he could be king and then the old king's ghost stayed about in the new king's chair."
"Why would a ghost sit in a chair? Though ghost couldn't sit down? They'd go right through," another boy, Clueless, said. He'd been on the island a fair while and unfortunately taken a few blows too many to his head during battle and raids, which didn't do his brain any favors.
"So he could get back at the new king for killing him in the first place, duh," Snotlout said knocking Clueless upside the head.
"Killing who in the first place?" Clueless asked.
"A ghost story," Camicazi broke in before the arguing turned into brawling. She smeared her muddy hand across her face. The muddy trail making her appear a wild savage in the firelight.
Two small hands clasped at mine, "I'm scared of ghosts," Nuffink's voice whispers in my ear. "There was one in the house we lived in before. I heard it I the closet and our brother said if we opened the door the ghost would steal us away and take us to where the dead things lived."
My free hand wrapped over their trembling ones, partly out to comfort them and partly to mask my surprise at this. A brother? Zephyr and Nuffink had a brother, and an older one by the sounds of it? Where had he been when we found them shivering in that box in the rain? Why hadn't the said anything before?
Camicazi started speaking then, the two crowded closer to me.
"Once they're were two little kids, a brother and sister," Camicazi began and her eyes lingered on me and Zephyr and Nuffink when she looked out at us all, "Two very little kids with soft hair like the down on baby Snowpeckers."
My eyes met hers, I wasn't fooled. I knew what she was about.
"These two little Snowpeckers lived in the forest and were always hopping and playing with their brothers and sisters, but weren't good at listening, oh no. They were always wandering off and never listened to their papa, and he would chitter and find them. But no matter how much he would scold them and say they were to mind him, they never did.
"Wasn't this a ghost story," Clueless wondered. "What's all this talk about Snowpeckers?"
"Shush," Snotlout said.
"Then one day the Snowpeckers and their brothers and sisters and papa went for a walk through the woods, and the naughty Snowpeckers saw a little bitty brown dragon scuttling around. Not minding their papa they laughed and followed after him, trying to catch him with their little fat hands, but he was too fast.
"They wouldn't stop though, not paying attention to how the woods turned into an open space, chasing and laughing, until all at once they noticed, there was no chittering of siblings or papa bird around them, and how everything just seemed to stretch on silently. It was then that the disobedient Snowpeckers saw how far they strayed from the forest, and all they could see around them was wide open space."
I frowned, sensing the little Snowpeckers were seconds away from wandering into a Skullion den. I shook my head at Camicazi, but my silent msilent was ignored.
"The silly little Snowpeckers began chattering then, chattered long and loud, and waited for their papa to chatter back, but there came no papa to save them. Then the two started crying, chattering and crying, begging their papa to come rescue them like babies do. And the insects and little scuttling dragons watched the two hopping along and shook their heads, for were they not foolish for disobeying their papa and not sticking by him like they should've?
"Then dusk started stretching its dark fingers over the world, and the little Snowpeckers were scared, but they kept hopping and calling, praying that around every bend their papa would suddenly appear , ready to scold them and hug them close all at once.
"My papa was never like that," Clueless said to Hroar, who sat beside him. "He was only for hitting and yelling, never hugging."
Camicazi continued without seeming to have heard. " A long time after the two kids came upon a stretch of white sandy beach. The water was clean and warm and broke gently on the sand, almost like it was enticing them to splash around and wash their fears away."
Hmmm, I thought , they're to be food for sharks, then. I pulled the two young kids closer, wrapping one arm over each of their shoulders, like I was saving them from hearing the bloody conclusion.
"The two little Snowpeckers went to the water's edge and waded in, and the warm water washed against their toes and made them forget their fear, for nothing compares to playing on a beach, and the high moon overhead cast an enchanting white glow on the water, and the two were pleased to have a bit of fun after walking and crying for so long by themselves in the fields. The two laughed and laughed.
At that very moment a big wave roared towards them and dragged them out deeper until their feet could no longer feel the bottom. They flapped their little wings and tried to fly away, but woe, they could not fly yet, and the water kept rushing over their heads and pulling them under, so they had to fight just to keep their head above the surface as they drifted further and further away. They didn't even see the soft ripples of a dorsal fin breaking through the water a dorsal fin that had serrated edges, like a bread knife.
Sharkworm, my thoughts grew more uneasy.
"The fin wasn't very far away from where the little Snowpeckers were splashing together and the little boy Snowpecker started up and shouted to his sister, "Look out, swim away, swim away or we'll be eaten!"
They both kicked their little legs and swam a little way, and the girl managed to find a crag of rock peeking over the water and climbed out looking over her shoulder to see if her brother was safely out too like she hoped, but he wasn't. He was smaller and weaker then her and was still a ways out. The little girl Snowpecker's heart was in her mouth, because she was frightened but didn't want to stay up there and watch her brother get eaten by the Sharkworm. That lazy, slow moving dorsal fin still circled the same place, perhaps it hadn't seen them, maybe she still had time to get her brother out of the water."
"Why's the bird so stupid?" Clueless asked. He seemed to have forgotten the Snowpeckers in Camicazi's story were actually children. "Don't she know that circling means the Sharkworm's way of fooling the prey into thinking it hasn't seen them?"
A few of the others nodded, eyes fixated on Camicazi enraptured by the story.
Zephyr and Nuffink hadn't forgotten the Snowpeckers were children. They sat huddled into my chest, like they were trying to block or the story somehow. Only we three seemed to know it wasn't going to end well and only I was aware the story was for my ears more then anyone else. Those two were dead terrified of Sharkworm's after I explained to them what they were, and they were right to be. The bigger ones could swallow tiny things like them up in one bite.
"No, Clueless, no she doesn't know that," Camicazi said, acknowledging Clueless's question. "Didn't I say they were foolish little birds. They don't know Sharkworm's are the craftiest killers in the sea. Everyone knows that's why we never go into the ocean alone and never after dark. For Sharkworm's are most active after dark."
"If you go swimming out after dark you won't come back," Hroar and Snotlout said in unison.
"'Cept Hiccup," Ruffnut said.
""Yeah,'cept Hiccup," Tuffnut said.
"Not even a Sharkworm would be so foolish as to go after Hiccup," Camicazi said and there was a fierce tone of pride in her voice.
On a normal day that pride would've made my chest swell if not for Nuffink's tiny voice. "But what happened to the Snowpeckers?"
"Exactly, Nuffink," Camicazi said. "What will happen to our foolish little Snowpeckers. Well the sister walked out to the edge of the crag, keeping an eye on Mr. Sharkworm. She gathered all her courage and peered out where she could see her brother , still a ways out and swimming wildly."
"I thought this was supposed to be a ghost story," one of the newer boys, Wartihog said. He wasn't to thrilled with the little Snowpecker story.
"Yeah," Gustav added. "I thought a ghost story had cursed bloody corpses with bloody daggers creeping in after dark and whatnot?"
"If you don't shut it, the ghost bit will never get here," Camicazi said, a flash of irritation in her eyes.
That's fine. I thought. Me and Zephyr and Nuffink, we already knows what happens, how the Sharkworm chomps the little Snowpeckers to pieces while they scream and cry for their father to come and save them. Me and these two, we already know.
I watched as Camicazi cleared her throat, watched as the others shut their traps. There was no thought I might take Zephyr and Nuffink away somewhere they wouldn't have to hear. The kids who were bored wouldn't leave either. We all knew it was her island, Camicazi's. She was the one who brought us all here, and in the back of everyone's mind I think was a similar thought. In some form, she can send us back If she wants too.
But only I know she won't. That was the only adamant certainty on the island. Once you came here, you can never go back.
That's fine for us, most of us were alone back there, or close enough. Running from drunken beatings or sleeping out in the cold and rain. Whatever Camicazi had to offer was better then that…even if there were real monsters here.
Only Zephyr and Nuffink didn't belong here, of that I was almost certain. They had a brother, a brother that had teased them with a ghost in the closet, sure, but who might've protected them from it as well. Maybe they were like the Snowpeckers in the story. Maybe they were following something wondrous when we found them that day. Maybe instead of taking them away like we did, we should've turned them back around. Instead of watching like the dragons and insects.
"The little girl Snowpecker reached for her brother in the water and her brother reached back." Camicazi continued.
"Swim," she called to him, "you've got to swim!"
"I can't, "he called back," My foots caught in some seaweed, I can't move!"
"How can birds talk," Clueless whispered to Wartihog. Camicazi shot them a look, the faintest hint of warning in her eyes.
"So that's why the Sharkworm hadn't come shooting towards them, jaws gaping, it has no need. It's meal was trapped. Why rush when it could let its prey tire. No need to chase little children onto rocks."
"Ok, when did the Snowpeckers become kids?" Clueless asked.
They were always kids. I thought.
"The little girl Snowpecker thought and thought, but the only way she saw to save her brother was to jump in and pull him free herself. So she dived back in and the old Sharkworm turned its head but didn't come any closer.
"The little girl Snowpecker swam out to her brother and ducked under the water and there, tangled around his feet was a big old clump of seaweed. She saw the Sharkworm as well but he just stayed where he was like he was sleep swimming.
"She told her brother to still as his struggling was only tangling the seaweed tighter around his legs and might tangle her up too if he kept thrashing, for who would save them if they were both trapped?
"She dove back under and started pulling on the weeds. She pulled with all her strength, hoping and hoping she could pull the weeds loose before the Sharkworm spotted them, but she was still a small bird, and the weeds were tangled tight. And when she came up for air she saw how far they has drifted in the current.
"Then she started to cry and when she cried her brother cried, for they were scared of the Sharkworm and of drowning in the sea, and all they wanted was their papa to come and wrap them under his wings and take them home.
Her eyes looked at me then and I knew the next part was for me, and me alone. The two beside me shook and I turned their heads onto my shoulders, just like a papa might do for his kids, a good papa anyway.
"But why, you might ask, did she not just leave her brother while she could still save herself," Camicazi continued," Well though she was terrified, she refused to leave her brother, and though their arms were sore and hair clumped with salt, she would never leave him, if she couldn't free him she'd have to swim alongside him until they headed back to the rocks.
"And then they heard it, something they first though they might've imagined, but soon made their hearts leap with joy. It was the sound of their papa calling for them. Chattering and chattering their names.
"For a moment they forgot their fear, forgot the Sharkworm, for all they heard was their father's voice calling for them. Then they saw him on shore, and they called back and they never felt more happy them they did then. Their papa had come to save them like he always did.
" Oh, but the crafty old Sharkworm, he knew his chance had come at last. The two's eyes were away from him and only saw their papa, but if they turned their heads they would've seen the fin sink beneath the waves. He wasn't moving slow now, now he cut through the water like a hot knife through butter."
Zephyr and Nuffink snuggled tighter against me, like they were trying to sink onto me. I couldn't tell them it would all be ok, I didn't have the heart to lie to them.
"And what do you think happened to our two foolish Snowpeckers," Camicazi asked for she never skimped on a chance to preform for her audience.
"They got ate," Gustav said, "and turned into ghosts"
I smirked at the frown on Camicazi's face. She felt that even though that was obviously the outcome, Gustav didn't have the flair for theatrical storytelling.
"But papa saw, he saw his children in the water, saw the eyes of the Sharkworm, as red as freshly spilled blood and hungry, saw him dive underwater, saw the joy on his little ones faces, cried for them to move, as he dove in after them praying he'd somehow reach them before the Sharkworm.
"Their papa, he squawked and squawked, swimming and calling for his little ones to hurry. Just like a shark the attack came from below, they didn't even have time to scream before the Sharkworm had their legs in his jaws. He screamed for them, but they were already dragged under. But he should've kept a better eye on them, shouldn't he have? Isn't that what fathers are supposed to do?"
"Don't know, never knew our papa or mama." Tuffnut said as his sister nodded consent.
"I did," Hroar said, and it didn't sound like he was thrilled about it either.
"We did," Zephyr and Nuffink's voices said in my ear, "They would rock us and sing to us and make nightmares go away."
"The papa Snowpecker, he reached the spot his young had vanished, but all that waited for him…was blood to be lost in the water.
"Now you might think that the little Snowpeckers became ghosts that haunt the craggy shore to the sea," Camicazi whispered, her eyes hard and focused on the two shivering kids in my arms.
"Course they did," Clueless said, "Didn't they?"
Then Camicazi smiled, a long slow headshake was all it took to send them all into confusion.
"Then what's the whole business with the Snowpeckers." Gustav said, but he didn't sound annoyed, only curious.
"The father Snowpecker drifted in the same spot his little ones were taken, eyes flowing with tears for his lost children. His salty tears mixing with the ocean as the waves washed over him time and time again as he cried on and on, for it was his fault his little boy and girl were lost in the first place. After a very long time his tears ran dry, but still he stayed in that same spot, each crash of the waves against him stripping him away bit by slow bit, and every part that left him broke and turned soft and white, becoming the foam that forms when water meets shore, and until this day, recedes out with the water again, hoping to catch a glimpse of his little ones again. Sometimes even now, if you go stand on the shore and listen closely to the waves crashing against the sand, you can still hear his voice on the sea breeze, crying their names."
Camicazi paused and let that sink in. I couldn't tell what the others might take from this…mostly they looked confused and maybe slightly disappointed- but I knew Camicazi had wove the tale for me. But was I the papa Snowpecker, doomed to lose his little ones, or was I meant to return them to him before something happened to Zephyr and Nuffink? I couldn't say.
Camicazi's eyes were as cold and unfeeling as the Sharkworm in her story, and Zephyr and Nuffink's quiet tears spread across my shoulders.
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